Kompot is the drink that sits on the Polish dinner table in a glass jug, as reliably as salt. It is simply fruit simmered in water with a little sugar and then cooled: strawberries and rhubarb in early summer, cherries and currants in July, apples and plums in autumn, and in winter a smoky version of dried fruit that is one of the dishes of Christmas Eve. School canteens serve it, grandmothers make it by the potful, and the fruit at the bottom of the glass is eaten with a spoon or fought over.

It is light, not syrupy, and far less sweet than shop juice. A jug of it in the fridge on a hot race weekend is a small act of generosity toward everyone in the house.

The kompot

Ingredients

• 10 cups (2.4 liters) water
• 1 lb (450 g) strawberries
• 2 stalks (about 7 oz or 200 g) rhubarb
• 2 apples
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup (65 to 100 g) sugar
• 1 strip lemon peel

Method

1. Put the water in the pot and bring it to a boil over high heat.
2. Add the apples and rhubarb and simmer 5 minutes. Add the strawberries and lemon peel and simmer 3 to 5 minutes more.
3. Turn off the heat and stir in 1/3 cup (65 g) sugar until dissolved. Taste and add more if you like it sweeter. Cover and leave to cool completely in the pot, about 1 hour, so the fruit keeps giving its flavor.
4. Remove the lemon peel. Ladle the kompot, with some of the fruit, into the jug and refrigerate until cold.

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